The daily life of raising 4 wild and wonderful boys and one spunky and amazing daughter.

Monday, February 28, 2011

Book Time

I'm home with sick kids. 4 kids with horrible coughs, terrible noses and fevers. They were sick all weekend and on it goes. I've got it too. Tuba is the only one who is completely well. Good for him!

So, I'm home and the kids are being allowed to watch more TV than they ever thought possible. I might as well catch up on my blogging. :)

Book club met last week and we discussed 3 Cups of Tea; One Man's Mission to Promote Peace...One School at a Time. I loved this book! Everybody should read it. Inspirational and educational and entertaining. The best!

Here is one of my favorite quotes in the book. "In times of war, you often hear leaders-Christians, Jewish, and Muslim-saying, 'God is on our side.' But that isn't true. In war, God is on the side of the refugees, widows and orphans." The other is in reference to educating girls and Mortenson's struggle to get more village girls attending school. He says, "Once you educate the boys, they tend to leave the villages and go search for work in the cities. But girls stay home, become leaders in the community, and pass on what they've learned. If you really want to change a culture, to empower women, improve basic hygiene and health care, and fight high rates of infant mortality, the answer is to educate girls". I first read this quote in the book Half the Sky. I highly recommend the book. If anyone ever wonders what they can do to fight poverty, slavery, terror in the world....read both of these books and you will have your answer. We can ALL do something. We cannot do everything but we can do something. So, go do it!

I am book club host for March and I chose Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See. Thank you Erika for the suggestion...and now, what kind of chocolate would you like?? Send me your address too. I'm excited to get reading this book. Looks great. This is what Publisher's Weekly says about the book.

See's engrossing novel set in remote 19th-century China details the deeply affecting story of lifelong, intimate friends (laotong, or "old sames") Lily and Snow Flower, their imprisonment by rigid codes of conduct for women and their betrayal by pride and love. While granting immediacy to Lily's voice, See (Flower Net) adroitly transmits historical background in graceful prose. Her in-depth research into women's ceremonies and duties in China's rural interior brings fascinating revelations about arranged marriages, women's inferior status in both their natal and married homes, and the Confucian proverbs and myriad superstitions that informed daily life. Beginning with a detailed and heartbreaking description of Lily and her sisters' foot binding ("Only through pain will you have beauty. Only through suffering will you have peace"), the story widens to a vivid portrait of family and village life. Most impressive is See's incorporation of nu shu, a secret written phonetic code among women—here between Lily and Snow Flower—that dates back 1,000 years in the southwestern Hunan province ("My writing is soaked with the tears of my heart,/ An invisible rebellion that no man can see"). As both a suspenseful and poignant story and an absorbing historical chronicle, this novel has bestseller potential and should become a reading group favorite as well.

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Wild at Heart Family

About Me

I'm a stay at home mom with four beautiful boys (five counting my husband) and one beautiful girl that keep me hopping and challenge me to laugh and have fun everyday. Two of our children were adopted from Ethiopia. And...our youngest two babies came to our family the same week! We are Orthodox Christians striving to live out our faith.